AI Leather-soled boot skidded across wet cobbles as Harlow Quinn lunged forward, rain lashing her face. She hauled herself over a tipped rubbish bin, its lid crashing behind her, and caught sight of her suspect’s fleeing silhouette beneath a flickering neon arrow. He shuffled through tangled shadows, head ducked, every stride spraying rivulets of water.
“Stop!” Her voice cracked off brick walls, swallowed by the night.
He vaulted a low wall and vanished into a narrow alley. Quinn’s breath burned in her lungs. She darted in, pressing fingers to the rough stone beside a swollen drainpipe. A shove of her shoulder sent her across to the next street where shop windows blurred under strobing rain. She caught a glimpse of torn denim, a pale patch where blood stained cloth.
Traffic lights blinked green. Before her, double-decker buses groaned past. The suspect darted between two parked cars. Quinn launched herself, arms outstretched. He twisted around the hood, scattering rainwater like shattered glass.
Ahead, a boarded door bore arcane chalk marks. She knew those lines from the gallery in Euston: sloppy runes, half-erased. The suspect jerked the boards aside, revealing a flight of concrete steps plunged into an oily black void. He vanished downward.
Quinn hesitated for a heartbeat. Then she dropped onto the threshold, steel entering her palm, and followed. The windstorm of her chest slowed as she absorbed the sudden hush. Footsteps echoed , quick and sure, on damp stone. A single bare bulb swung above, stirring motes of dust and prismed droplets.
She scanned the walls: graffiti in peeling green and crimson, arrows scrawled in spidery script. “This way,” one line seemed to hiss. She pressed on, crouching as she rounded a bend. Her watchface gleamed dimly; the leather band soaked through, chilling her wrist.
The corridor sloped down into a sealed gate of cast iron bars. Her suspect crouched beside it, lifting a small bone token—a fractured human femur, polished smooth. He slipped it into a carved socket. The lock clicked. The bars swung open with a grinding complaint. A blast of warmth and otherworldly chatter pulsed behind him. He slipped inside.
Quinn crouched in the gloom , breath hollow. She rocked onto her heels. Beyond the gate, muffled music throbbed . Voices rose and fell in harsh tongues. Someone laughed, sharp and metallic. She eased forward, pressing fingertips to cool iron. Her heart hammered, urging her on. She slipped the gate shut behind her, the bar sliding home with an echoing clang.
A low yellow light revealed a vaulted hall, slick with condensation. Stalls lined shifting platforms, each manned by hooded figures. Tables groaned under heaps of strange wares: opal orbs that pulsed like distant hearts, rows of knives etched with runes, jars of dust labelled in indecipherable letters. The air tasted of sweet smoke and copper.
The suspect wove through the crowd, shoulders hunched, hood sliding back to reveal dark curls plastered to his skull. Quinn followed at a careful distance. She frog-walked behind a vendor selling alchemical tinctures. A bell chimed as she passed a trapdoor in the floor. Her boots clicked across raised metal grating.
“Looking for something particular?” The vendor’s voice rippled like oil on water. A pale hand emerged from deep sleeves, palm open. He offered a vial of bruised-purple liquid.
“Not today.” Quinn shook her head, remembering her cover: plainclothes officer, lost tourist. Her gaze locked on the suspect, drifting toward a cluster of arched doorways.
He stopped beside a stall draped in moth-eaten velvet . An old man, face hidden in shadows, flipped a silver dagger across his fingers. The trader’s breath hissed through a gap in his mask. The suspect produced a folded envelope and pressed it into gnarled fingers. The man tucked it into a hidden pocket.
Quinn’s jaw clenched . She edged nearer. A rattling overhead tram rattled past on a mock rail, sending a tremor through the floor. Her scalp prickled; this place breathed secrets. She tapped her watch twice, stifling the urge to check the time.
The crowd shifted as a phantom perfume swept through: night-blooming jasmine and stale wine. A barge of bodies jostled her. A woman’s voice called out: “New batch of dream-steaks. Five pounds apiece.” Dragged by the current, Quinn clipped shoulders with a man whose eyes glowed faintly red. He hissed, revealing a row of sharpened fangs. She forced a calm breath, pressing her palms flat against the stall behind her.
She lost sight of her quarry. She leapt onto a low platform, vaulting over stacked crates of obsidian mirrors. Glass shards glittered like black stars. Her pulse hammered. She heard scuffing ahead—a scuffle of feet on wood.
She sprinted toward a yawning arch. Rusted chains hung like grotesque icicles. She plunged through and nearly collided with Tomas Herrera, crouched over a folded body on an upturned barrel. He pressed gauze to a deep gouge along a pale ankle, his scarred forearm taut, Saint Christopher medallion swinging against dark cloth.
He sprang up at her approach, dark eyes narrowing. Blood dotted his fingertips.
“Detective Quinn.” His voice carried a hushed alarm. “You’re not—”
“Get clear.” She scanned the hall beyond him, every hooded figure frozen mid-trade. “I’m after him.”
Tomas frowned, dropping his knife-edge focus. “This is dangerous. You shouldn’t—”
“Don’t lecture me.” Quinn advanced, her leather watch thudding against the barrel . “Which way?”
He cupped his hand, nodding toward a narrow ramp at the far end. “He went that way. North end. Be careful. I can only do so much.”
She offered a curt nod and sprinted onward.
The ramp descended steeply, cold air replaced by a suffocating heat. Steam hissed through grated vents in the walls. The lamps overhead flickered , casting grotesque shadows that danced like living things. She felt them: the hushed stares, the rippling expectations of watchers. She passed stalls selling raven feathers, bone idols, vials of quicksilver. Each vendor’s gaze followed her, calculating .
At the bottom, a vast chamber stretched ahead. Stalagmite-like pillars of dripping stone framed a central pool of ink-black liquid. At its edge, the suspect knelt. He dipped trembling fingers into the depths , drawing up a handful of sludge. He lifted his face, coated in viscous dark matter, lips twitching.
“Stop!” Quinn’s pistol cleared her holster, blue beam flaring from its barrel. She kept low, pressing weight onto her right knee. “Hands in the air!”
He froze, eyes wide beneath the hood, twin scarlet streaks dripping from his temples. The sludge dripped back into the pool with a slap. For a moment, everything stilled.
Then his body bent at inhuman angles. His bones snapped like twigs. He rose too tall now, limbs elongated, fingers spidery. The sludge melted from his skin, revealing sinew woven through with glimmering veins. He extended a hand toward her.
Quinn’s chest stung. She swung the pistol upward, but the beam flickered and died. The clip lay empty in her palm. She scowled, hand dropping. Behind her, footsteps clattered on the ramp.
A chorus of voices, low and taunting, rose from the shadows. Figures stepped into the light, hoods back, faces carved with unnatural scars. They closed ranks, forming a half-circle around her.
Quinn’s gaze flicked to the stone pillars, the echoes of dripping water. No exit. The chamber felt alive, breathing. She should retreat, fall back up the ramp—but the door behind had slammed shut. She heard its lock engaging, the final click reverberating through her bones.
A single figure detached from the circle: the hooded trader who’d handled the dagger. His grin split wide. He tapped the dagger against his palms. Blood mist spattered on the ground.
Quinn straightened, back ramrod-straight, military precision lighting every movement. She flexed her fingers. Her leather watch slipped loose, sliding down her wrist.
“Welcome,” the trader said, voice smooth as oil . “To the Veil Market.”
A soft rasp echoed from the pool. The suspect-thing watched her, wings of sludge curling at his spine.
Quinn tightened her jaw. She raised her eyes to the trader and spat between clenched teeth, “I’m leaving.”
He tilted his head, blade tracing the air in a slow arc. “You already chose to follow.”
The circling figures advanced. Stone floor quaked under their steps.
Quinn hauled herself upright, surveying the chamber. A pillar crack rippled overhead. She spotted a narrow fissure behind them, light leaking faintly through. A way out—maybe. But the hoods pressed closer, anticipation humming like electric wires.
Her hand hovered for her service revolver, empty. She twisted, sprinting toward the fissure. The trader’s knife sliced through the air, carving a red arc. A hiss rose from the crowd as he lunged.
Quinn dove past the slash, arms outstretched, reaching for the gap. Splinters of stone cascaded. The trader’s foot kicked at her heel, propelling her forward. She shot through the fissure, shoulder crashing against rough metal grating.
The crowd roared behind her. She slammed her shoulder against another wall, skidding across slick stone. She yanked at the bars beside the fissure. They refused to budge.
A clawed hand wrapped around her upper arm. She felt rotten breath on her neck. She spun, elbow smashing into bone, hearing a sickening crunch. The figure recoiled, shrieking. Quinn twisted back to the grating, hauled it free with one arm.
Beyond lay a narrow maintenance tunnel. She dropped through into darkness, grate clanging shut above her. Cold seeped through her soaked jacket. She slammed her back against the wall, chest heaving.
Footsteps thundered above. Doors slammed. Distant laughter echoed , then a grinding scrape as the locked bars dug into metal.
Quinn let her head fall back against the tunnel wall. The damp stone pressed into her shoulder. She slid down to sit, legs drawn up. Rainwater dripped from a crack above, splattering her face in cold beads.
Her watch lay discarded at the entrance. She reached out, fingertips brushing the cracked glass.
She stared at the hidden market above, distant voices fading into the underground. She tugged the watch free, tucking it inside her coat.
A low rumble shook the tunnel. She pressed her palms to her ears as the grate above groaned. Light spilled through the narrow gap: dim glows, stuttering frames of hooded figures pressing their faces to bars.
Quinn exhaled, muscles coiling.
She stood, kicking loose stones toward the dark beyond. The tunnel stretched into pitch. The air smelled of concrete and old decay. No echo of escape. She fired a single round into the grate. The ricocheted metal rang like a warning bell.
Silence swallowed the sound.
Quinn tightened her coat, scanning the tunnel’s depths . She stepped forward, every sense pinned to the cold echo of her own breath.
Footsteps. Low and deliberate, coming from the black ahead.
She shifted into a ready stance. A shadow peeled away from the dark. The trader’s mask glinted.
Quinn didn’t hesitate. She lunged into the tunnel, disappearing into the black. The grate slammed shut above her, sealing the market from the world above.
The echo bounced back: one last clatter of stone, then nothing.